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News in Brief

AVATAR director James Cameron has announced at NAB a new company, Cameron-Pace Group, to develop, sell and lease 3D production technology to filmmakers, broadcasters, game manufacturers and anyone else who can be persuaded to use it. The new venture aims to accelerate the proliferation of 3D systems, especially in home viewing, where he expects changing technology to open the door to widespread use of 3D in just a few years.

LG ELECTRONICS has revealed that over a third (37%) of Brits say that the 2012 Olympics would tempt them to buy a 3D TV next year, with another 25% saying that the Euro 2012 would also make them consider moving to a new dimension. The survey of 2,000 people, conducted by LG, also showed that over half of respondents said that the next TV they buy will be 3D-capable, suggesting that Brits are really embracing 3D technology.

CHINA Video Industry Association (CVIA) has released China’s first set of online TV multimedia communications standards. Jiang Junkai, director of strategic partnerships for Chinese consumer electronics manufacturer Changhong, said the standards are the first to be drafted that address Internet-connected TV sets and TV peripherals.

ZEDIVA, a new movie streaming start-up that offers remote rentals of DVD players and discs is being sued by Hollywood majors. It operates on the premise that rented streams of DVD movies the company had purchased was really no different than renting a physical copy from Blockbuster or another traditional rental business. The company claimed that only one renter per physical DVD was allowed at the same time. Columbia, Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount, Universal, and Warner Bros. have filed a joint lawsuit against Zediva for streaming films without their permission.

SONY has selected Arqiva as its technology partner for the live global 3D distribution of the 2011 Wimbledon Tennis Championships to worldwide cinemas. This will be the first time the tournament has been transmitted live to cinemas or seen in HD 3D. Four key matches will be transmitted – the men’s semi-finals, the women’s final and the men’s final.

SAMSUNG has announced the launch of a 3D video streaming service for South Korea, and has put the US and Europe on standby for a similar launch. The service is the fruit of a content partnership with Dreamworks, and will include movie trailers, music videos and children's education films to start off, with full-length features and more added later on. The new on-demand media will be accessible via the 3D application on Samsung's Smart TV platform, and the function will eventually be rolled out worldwide.

UK box-office receipts topped £1 billion in 2010, an all-time high, with 3D accounting for £237.9m – more than a fifth of the total box-office.

CINRAM International has won a Merit Award in the 2011 REBRAND 100 Global Awards, which recognize excellence in brand repositioning. Cinram’s new branding was produced by Interbrand (Canada) based on the theme of “delivering excitement”. It aimed to reflect the firm’s 40 years of manufacturing and supply chain experience and reinforce its transformation into a global supply chain operation across all media channels including digital.

UK independent optical disc manufacturer VDC Group said it has formally accepted the CrystalLine Mastering System as well as the Bluline II replication system for the production of dual layer Blu-ray Disc. Tests of both, BD25 and BD50 discs, “produced overall yield above 90% with jitter levels consistently well within specification and achieving values as low as 4.7%.” The VDC Group is now the UK’s sole and only independent Blu-ray disc manufacturer.